(Taken outside Roger Adams Lab, UIUC campus, 21 April 2011)

In Denmark it’s known as a kringle.  75 miles across the Kattegat it’s called a kringla.  Continue east across the Baltic Sea and you’ll find the Estonians call it a kringel.  Regardlesss of the name, it’s delicious.

Growing up in near Chicago, I always knew kringles (or kringler in the proper Danish) to be a rich pastry filled with fruit and topped in thick white icing.  They typically showed up in the local grocery stores around the Christmas season where my mom would sometimes buy one to go with her morning tea.  I liked kringles, but sometimes all that icing was just too much.  So when I saw this recipe for an Estonian kringel, I was wondering to myself where all the fruit and icing went.  Apparently, the Estonian kringel is based on the classic combination of cinnamon and sugar, which simplifies the recipe a great deal.

I made this Estonian kringel tonight and was really pleased with how it turned out.  This bread definitely looks impressive with all of it’s twists and folds, but it’s really very simple to put together.  I only spent about 15-20 minutes on active preparation.  The dough does need to rise for 1-2 hours, so be sure to plan ahead.

Estonian Kringel

Original recipe (in Romanian) from Ana of Just Love Cookin’.

Note:  I did the conversions of the ingredients and found that they yielded a very dry dough.  I fixed that by slowly adding in milk until everything came together and felt right. I also had to rely on Google Page Translator, so I’m not sure if the recipe asked for 1 egg or 1 yolk. Google seemed to think the Romanian word galbenus could mean either egg or yolk. Other websites that I found gave yolk as the only meaning, so I decided to use only the yolk. If egg is the correct translation, however, then the missing whites could be why my dough was so dry. I’ll keep experimenting…

For the dough:
1/2 c. warm milk (110°F-115°F)
1 tsp. sugar
1 egg yolk
1/4 stick of butter (melted and cooled)
pinch of salt
2.5 tsp yeast
3 c. flour (I used bread flour)

For the filling:
1 stick of butter (softened)
3-4 Tbsp. of sugar
1-2 tsp. cinnamon

1. Combine yeast, sugar and warm milk in a large mixing bowl. Let this mixture rest until is has foamed up (5-10) minutes.

2. Lightly mix in melted butter and egg yolk.

3. Sift flour into the wet ingredients and add a pinch of salt.

4. Mix ingredients until they form a cohesive ball of dough. You may have to add more milk if dough is too dry or more flour if dough is too wet (see note above). Once you have a good consistency, knead the dough for 10 minutes. You can either knead the dough by hand or with a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook attachment.

5. Cover the dough and let rise 1-2 hours in a warm place away from any obvious drafts. While the dough is rising, mix up your cinnamon and sugar filling.

6. Preheat oven to 400°F.

7. Remove dough from the bowl and punch it down to remove any air bubbles.

8. Roll dough out into a thin rectangular sheet (about 1cm thick).

9. Spread the cinnamon and sugar mixture all over the sheet of dough, reserving a 1/4 of the mixture for the top of your kringel.

10. Roll the dough up into a log.

11. With a sharp knife, cut the log in half lengthwise.

12. Twist the two halves together, making sure to keep the pretty stripes facing outwards. Once they are twisted to your liking, connect the ends to form a circle.

13. Transfer to a baking sheet (lined with parchment paper or a Silpat) and spread the reserved cinnamon and sugar mixture on top of the kringel. A pastry brush works well for this.

14. Bake for 20-25 minutes.

Sorry for the shoddy cell phone picture. I went to take a picture with my real camera and the battery was dead. I’ll be sure to update this recipe with better pictures whenever I make this bread again. Until then, enjoy the photos over at Just Love Cookin’.

UPDATE! (29 Dec 2011)

I made this kringel again today and used brown sugar instead of white granulated sugar for the filling.  This gave it a much better flavor- more Cinnabon less Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

Instead of mixing the butter, sugar, and cinnamon together, I spread softened butter across the rolled out dough and sprinkled the cinnamon and brown sugar over the top.  This is the same technique used for making cinnamon rolls.

Finally, as promised, I experimented with the ratios and tried using a whole egg instead of just the yolk.  I used about 2-2.5c. of bread flour and 1c. of whole milk. This time around, the kringel was more dense and didn’t rise nearly as much as the first one I made (pictured above).  The flavor is still good, however, which is all that really matters.  For the next time, I will go back to the original ratios but keep the new brown sugar filling.

First…more content!  I’ve been far too neglectful.  This blog is really for my own benefit anyway. Let’s be honest, no one else reads it or cares about how I finally got around to cleaning out my closet.  So, by posting more (regardless of substance/extrinsic value), I’ll be rewarding myself with a bit of satisfaction.

Second…Recipes!  These past few weeks, I’ve noticed my culinary impulses have amplified.  I’ve always enjoyed cooking, but now even more so.  As a result, I hope to be posting more recipes, which can now all be found collected on a single page called Recipes (naturally).  I also replaced the Downloads link in the header navigation with the Recipes link.  The Downloads page was for when I made flyers promoting local rock shows, but I’m not doing that anymore.

Third…Links!  I updated the Links page with blogs and local establishments that I’ve been frequenting.  Check them out!

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So, if anyone is reading this blog, let me know if there’s anything you’d like me to write about.

I’m also up for recipe requests!

So I was supposed to be looking up some info on Plato, yet somehow I ended up reading about Suleiman the Magnificent. He was one of the great Sultans of the Ottoman Empire and he completely reformed the Ottoman legal code. With an empire that comprised nearly 40 million people across three continents (at its peak), it’s no wonder that the Ottoman legal code was so complicated.  Every time a new territory was conquered, new laws had to be made. Suleiman the Magnificent took it upon himself to assemble all of the legal documents that were enacted before him (Ottomans were great record keepers, true bureaucrats), remove the duplicates, and resolve any conflicting laws. Because of his reforms, he is known as “The Lawgiver” in the Eastern world.

Not only was Suleiman a great administrator, but he was also a patron of the arts. His support of various artistic trades within the empire engendered a truly Ottoman culture, combining European, Islamic, and Turkish styles. Suleiman, himself, wrote poetry under the name Muhibbi (meaning lover). Many of his poems were directed towards his wife, Haseki Hürrem Sultan (aka Roxelana). Roxelana was a Ukrainian girl who was captured by Crimean Tatars and forced into their slave trade. She eventually came into Suleiman’s harem and quickly became his favorite. Suleiman eventually freed her from the harem and asked her to be his wife. This was very unorthodox, yet it seems their love was accepted and Roxelana went on to affect many changes in her own right (e.g. setting up women’s hospitals and soup kitchens).

A couple of other cool facts about Suleiman:

-   His image can be seen in the Chamber at the United States House of Representatives.  Twenty-three marble reliefs are installed in the House Chamber, each depicting a leader “noted for their work in establishing the principles that underlie American law.”  Shhh…don’t tell the Christian zealots that there is a portrait of a Muslim permanently installed in the House Chamber.  Or that a Muslim is regarded as helping to establish “principles that underlie American law”.

-   He had an awesome signature.

Do you know what song this is? If you give up, click the “more” link at the end of the Latin passage to see my English translation.

“magnae clūnēs mihi placent, nec possum dē hāc rē mentīrī
vōs enim, amīcī meī, nōn potestis negāre -
quando puella venit mediō corpore gracile
sub quō manifestus globus est -
īnflammat animōs virōrum…”
-Vir quī multa miscet

“great buttocks are pleasing to me and I am not able to lie about this matter
truly you, my friends, are not able to deny -
when a girl comes into (our) midst with a slender body
behind which is a manifest spherical mass -
it inflames the strong feelings of men”
-The Man Who Mixes Many Things

[rant]
I know how you can save money and the environment! Try running a computer algorithm on your database to ensure that only one catalog is sent to each unique address. Having two catalogs sent to the same address is just wasteful.

In fact, maybe you should not send catalogs by default and instead send them only after they have been specifically requested by the customer. Especially if said customer only ever places orders online. I know you can put in a request to not be sent catalogs after the fact, but this seems like a waste of time and money.
[/rant]

I just made this German apple pancake.  Too bad you can’t be here because my apartment smells amazing.  You really can’t go wrong with apples, brown sugar, and butter.  This pancake also has just the right amount of cinnamon and it’s not overly sweet.  I did, however, use a Fuji apple because that’s what I had on hand.  Fuji’s are great for cooking as their flavor is a bit more muted than, say, a Granny Smith.  But for baking, I really do prefer a Granny Smith so I’ll try that next time.

You can dust powdered sugar over the top or drizzle a bit of maple syrup.  I went with the maple syrup and it helped to boost the subtleties of the Fuji.

Recipe Notes:

Thanks to A Homemaker’s Habitat for sharing this wonderful recipe!

Baked Apple Pancake

Serves 2

2 golden delicious apples, peeled, cored and very thinly sliced

3 Tbs. butter

3/4 cup milk

3 eggs

1 Tbs. sugar

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1/4 tsp. cinnamon

1/8 tsp. salt

1/2 cup all purpose flour (or 1/4 c. each all purpose and whole wheat flour)

1 Tbs. brown sugar

 

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Grease a 12-inch cast iron skillet, deep dish pie plate or 9 x 9″ square baking dish. Arrange apple slices in the bottom of the pan in an overlapping pattern. Dot top with butter and place pan in the oven for 10 minutes, or until butter is melted and apples are slightly soft.

 

Meanwhile, combine milk, eggs, vanilla, sugar, salt and cinnamon. Add flour and whisk until batter is smooth. Pull pan from oven and pour batter evenly over the apples. Sprinkle brown sugar evenly over all, then place pan back in the oven and bake for 20 minutes until pancake is puffed and golden on the top and firm in the center. Serve immediately, warm with a sprinkle of powdered sugar and maple syrup.

Now that I have completed the purge, all of my clothes fit into my closet and dresser (which is how it should be, right?) No longer do I have tupperware bins of “out of season” clothes just because I have no where else to put them.

I also gathered and stored away all of my field clothes, sheets, and towels.  These went into a “space bag” where they were compressed and neatly stored under my bed until next summer.  I was was really happy with how the “space bag” worked and would recommend them to anyone looking for a good long-term storage solution*.

Now that the hard part has been accomplished I have two things yet to do:

1.  Get the pile of unwanted clothes out of my apartment!  I was thinking of donating some to Goodwill and taking the nicer items to a local resale shop.

2.  Organize my closet.  I have everything put away, but the top shelf needs some attention.  I’m looking into some shelf dividers or cubbies for my purses, scarves, belts, etc…

It would also be nice to have everything on cedar hangers, but that’s a long way off.

*Note:  No one has payed me to say this; it’s my own opinion.